Photography Blog September 2026 - Editing Software

Last month was about the GFX100RF, a camera that I hoped would liberate me from the stresses of what cameras and lenses to own, what to take on any given outing and what to use for any given shot. Take all those decisions away,  take the shot, and crop into the 102 megapixels later if needed. Or if time allows,  slow down, compose entirely in camera using it's amazing sensor and lovely controls. 

The main limitation I touched on at the end of last month's post - it is not an ideal camera to be rattling off great shots of a 2 year old tearing about the place. I think I can make it work though - picking the moments and picking the shots. The Autofocus is accurate just not fast. No matter what camera or lenses you have, there are always shots that you are not going to get, and you have to accept that and work with it or around it.  The pro's massively outweigh the con's - it's a beautiful camera that is fun and interesting to use. The image quality still astounds me in many shots and I think it will do what I intended to do. Just to be sure with my decision, I bought another Nikon 50mm 1.8S and ran it on the Z6III for a day. It is as sharp a lens as you will find, yet when I did some indoor portraits framed the same way (RF was in the 50mm crop mode), the RF was still somehow sharper on the eyes and it gave much more pleasing skin textures (though I do slightly prefer Nikon's skin tones)

With that decision out of the way my next step is to cut down on time and energy spent after taking photos, and so this month is about finding my post processing workflows.

And as usual, I'll inject some of my favourite photos from this month taken with the GFX100RF. 

Sumiyoshi Shrine

The processes of Photography

For any serious (or enthusiastic) hobby photographer there are these 3 aspects to the process of photography, along with the items that enable them.

1. Taking photographs - Camera equipment
2. Post processing photographs - Editing software
3. Storing, organising, sharing and view photographs - Software, Cloud storage, Printers

Mifune dinosaur museum

My overall goal is to streamline each of these processes so that there is minimum friction and minimum time spent on things other than taking photos. And as a result, achieving maximum enjoyment from my Photography.

Fujifilm GFX100RF

Shadow recovery example of GFX100RF in Capture One

Software

#2 on the above list. I touched on this last month, and with the different cameras I have been testing different software to see what works with the different files best. I already have paid licenses for a few packages (Photomator, Darkroom, DXO Photolab 9 + Film Pack 8) which is close to ¥100,000 spent, so naturally I am reluctant to spend on new software. I should be able to achieve results and with an efficient workflow with what I've got rather than thinking there is always something better out there (which is what happens to me with Cameras and lenses)

I did subscribe to Capture One Pro for a month though as I have the free Fujifilm version that shows promise but is limited in feature set. Lifetime license is ¥59,000 though so it would have to blow me away to spend yet more on software.

I did a lot of testing, editing the same sets of images in different software and often days apart and then compare images directly. I would also then try replicating the best shots in the other softwares just to see if they are truly capable. It's not just about the best results, it's about getting them efficiently. I don't ever want to spend more than 10 minutes on a single image. This is all personal and subjective though.

To keep this concise and avoid having to write full-blown software reviews,  I have just given a brief summary of my findings and opinions on each software. There are plenty of reviews elsewhere online if you want to go into more depth, and most of them offer free trials too. 

Preston

Uto Marina

Uto Peninsula

Capture One Pro

C1 is the best companion for the GFX100RF as it has the best support for the files, respects your in-camera crops when using the aspect ratio dials and has the best film simulations that match the ones in-camera. 

I found C1 to be the best at getting excellent images in a short amount of time with great colours and punch. The controls are very nice and it is easy to achieve a desired result based on your vision for an image. The sliders are a dream to use and there are so many useful features here especially for portraits. The most recent release saw it get AI denoise, which was a key area it was lagging behind the competition, and from my tests it is good enough to not need to use DXO as an extra step for noise reduction.

I dislike two things however. Firstly, having to import and manage your images within Catalogs or sessions, and secondly, on a Mac, whenever you max your window, (which is every time you open an app) you have to re-enable the browser and tool tabs as they default back to auto-hide. Annoying!

Uto Peninsula and Amu Plaza

DXO Photolab 9 + Film Pack 8

I have used this for a good few months now and I have mixed feelings about DXO Photolab 9. Firstly, the corrections and raw conversion are top notch, and the Deep Prime noise reduction is the best on the market. It literally is magic and a game changer for not caring about High-ISO - particularly when your lens is f/4 and you don't have IBIS like on the GFX100RF.

The UI is nice and you can manage your files within your normal computer filing system. It has all the features you would want and it's easy to use. The Film Pack 8 add-on includes all the Fuji film sims as well as a tonne of actual film sims which are very well done.

My issues come with actually getting good images out of it. Images that need minimal editing are no problem, but in high dynamic range situations I constantly struggle trying to get exposure, colour and contrast the way I want it. I know it's capable because I managed to 99% replicate images I edited in C1 aside from ones with complex lighting issues, though it took a very long time per image. I don't like the sliders very much, they affect a too-broad a range. The highlight slider for example brings down the brightness of the entire image. This makes it very time consuming to work around and sometimes I just cannot get the desired result that I know I could achieve in other software. So it's capable but perhaps I just need to learn its nuances more. 

I should also note that the 102MP GFX files make DXO extremely laggy even on an M5 MacBook Pro, and especially using masks. 

Ariake Sea

Ariake Sea

Photomator

I'm not including Darkroom as it just does not play in the same league. As per my in depth comparison, Photomator is far superior. It really is a lovely program to use. Typical of anything Apple, the UI is clean and concise, more so than any other editing software I have used. It is well featured with everything a hobbyist would need including automations and AI for Denoising, masking and Adjustments. If you use Apple Photos, it is well worth considering as it includes the iPhone and iPad apps too for seamless cross-device Photo editing and management, something the others considered here cannot do. Storage is no longer cheap and even exports of 100MP files are not small and Photomator can export as HEIF which saves a tonne of space. 

The downside is that it uses the Apple RAW engine which is not very good. Images converted with this lack depth, sharpness and detail. The difference was stark when I compared to other software and I stopped using it. However, many people use DXO just for RAW conversion and then edit in another program - I tried this, exporting DNG's from DXO into Photomator and it works well, and is the basis on how I did my testing with Photomator. 

Sumiyoshi Shrine

Uto Peninsula

Ariake Sea

Conclusion

Capture One Pro is great, and definately the best of the bunch as a single overall package now it has effective denoising. Spending ¥59,000 in addition to the ¥100,000+ I have already spent on software though? Future me chiming in here to say yes I did eventually go with Capture One in the end.

DXO: The Raw conversion and noise reduction is so damn good that I shouldn't write it off just because I'm struggling to get the results from it. Photomator is the nicest to use thanks to it's UI, and it's ease of use and features make it feel like there is always a solution, always an angle to correcting tricky parts of images for me. It is intuitive.

Until I coughed up for Capture One, I actually found a really good work around as a combination of DXO and Photomator. If you own DXO Photolab and aren't happy with it's editing or if you just own DXO Pure RAW, then this could be a consideration for you if you own a Mac. Here is the hybrid workflow:

It's fast and easy, with DXO providing the superb base image quality and Photomator providing the nice UI and features for editing. Space saving HEIC files is the cherry on the top. I can also decide to do some edits in DXO of course. 

Sumiyoshi Shrine and Nagahamamachi

File management

#3 on the list from the top. I mentioned last month I felt a bit lost as I take all these photos, edit them and just put on a drive where most never see the light of day. Slightly depressing really. What is the point of having a nice camera that you enjoy taking photos with, figuring out a nice easy workflow to then not be able to enjoy the end product? 

I tackled this in a few ways. Firstly, I started this little blog series to talk about photography with the main focus to be posting photos. Secondly, with my new workflow I moved back to Apple Photos. I set up smart albums for everything I needed so that I don't have to manually sort or organise anything at all. I've trained it enough to identify all the people it needs to swell. It really is a whole lot easier than manual library management. Just import and then walk away and it all just happens. I don't use iCloud to sync between devices anymore - instead I have it setup so connecting my iPhone to my Mac automatically syncs some selected albums to my phone. I found that HEIF syncs at full size, but other file types downscale to 3MP.

The other thing I did was purchase a printer. I bought a Canon Selphy CP1500 along with a couple of packs of paper, ink and photo albums. I went printing up a storm and made a few albums straight away, making up for lost time. The colours are slightly off and there is no colour management options to fix it, but it's acceptable and the overall quality of the 6x4 prints is decent. It is so nice being able to hold my photos in my hands. It's not cheap to print a lot but considerably cheaper than Instax. 100 photos, including paper, ink, and an album to put them in sets me back ¥4800. That is ¥48 per photo, or in freedom units, 30c each. 

The printer itself was ¥16,000. To put it into perspective, if you were to buy the printer and everything you need to print 1,000 photos it would cost ¥54,000. That's the cost of a cheap lens. I recommend any photographer to grab one to experience printing and to hold your photos in your hands.

Sumiyoshi Shrine

In closing

Your post processing workflow is just as important as any other part of photography. Learning your software is just as important as learning photography techniques too. Before ultimately buying Capture One, I was very happy with my workflow using DXO and Photomator, and it's always good to be able to find solutions within what you have. 

Something that is massively underestimated until you use it, is amazing Raw conversion and AI denoise. Lightroom is well known to be rather average for RAW conversion and even basic proprietary software such as Sony's Imaging Edge and Nikon's NX studio are far superior in that regard. But then DXO Photolab / PureRaw and Capture One sit at the top of that tree, and both have great AI denoise for when the ISO gets higher. Honestly it is so good, I've got from capping Auto ISO at 3200 to now 12800 without hesitation. 

I hope this has provoked some thoughts regarding your own workflow! By changing software I have now taken a few steps backwards in terms of workflow efficiency, but ultimately I should end up taking a few steps forward and with more professional tools at my disposal too.